Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management, a world-renowned hedge fund, died of illness on Tuesday (23rd) US time at the age of 90.
Robertson is known as the godfather of the safe-haven funding industry, with an impressive investment record and a personal wealth of more than $4 billion. Robertson's investment strategy is based on "value investing", and he has led the Tiger Fund to achieve amazing results, once becoming the largest hedge fund in the United States, with a management size of up to $23 billion.
It's worth noting that there are also some investment giants who were born before World War II, such as Buffett, Munger and Soros. At present, the industry has entered the stage of inheritance of new and old.
The godfather of the "hedge fund industry" died of illness
According to foreign media reports, Robertson's long-term spokesman said that he died of heart complications at his home in Manhattan on the morning of August 23 (August 24, Beijing time) local time in the United States at the age of 90.
According to public information, Robertson was born in a small town in the southern United States before World War II, and after graduating from the University of North Carolina, he worked at Kidder Peabody Securities for 20 years. Robertson founded the Tiger Fund in 1980 for $8 million, with an average annual return of 32% until 1998, making it considered the godfather of the safe-haven funding world. Tiger Fund is one of the most well-known macro hedge funds. Robertson's investment strategy is based on "value investment", that is, calculating a reasonable price based on the profitability of the listed company, and then entering the market at a low price and selling at a high price.
The late 1980s and early 1990s were the most glorious period for Robertson and tiger funds. At the time, Robertson accurately predicted that the German stock market would enter a bull market after the fall of the Berlin Wall, while the Japanese stock market where the short-selling bubble reached its peak (short selling refers to borrowing stocks first, then selling, and then buying them back when the stock price falls to a certain level, earning the difference in the price). After 1992, he foresaw disasters in the global bond market. In 1993, Tiger Fund (together with Soros's Quantum Fund), a hedge fund owned by Tiger Fund Management, successfully attacked the pound sterling and lira, and gained huge profits in this operation, and the Tiger Fund has since gained fame. With the popularity of many investors, the tiger fund's capital has since swelled rapidly, eventually becoming the most prominent hedge fund in the United States.
The assets under management at Tiger Fund expanded rapidly after the 1990s, from $8 million in 1980 to $1 billion in 1991 and $7 billion in 1996. In the summer of 1998, its total assets peaked at $23 billion, making it the largest hedge fund in the United States.
However, since the second half of 1998, the Tiger Fund has made a series of mistakes in its yen and stock investments, and has since declined. By March 31, 2000, the Size of Tiger Fund's management had fallen from a peak of $23 billion to $6.5 billion, and Robertson announced the end of all operations of its six hedge funds, liquidating $6.5 billion in assets, of which 80% were returned to investors, and Robertson personally left $1.5 billion to continue investing. From the inception of the Tiger Fund to the end of March 2000, there was still an 85-fold increase (after all expenses), which is more than three times the S&P 500 index.
Since then, Robertson has hatched "Tiger Cubs", which include "Tiger Legatus" and "Tiger Cub" hedge funds such as Tiger Legatus and Tiger Global, as well as a large number of well-known fund managers. At present, Tiger Fund mainly manages family assets.
Among them, the protagonist of the 2021 Archegos Capital Management explosion incident, Korean fund manager Bill Hwang, is also a member of the "Tiger Club", and he caused "the largest single-day loss in human history". Archegos lost about $20 billion in two days in March 2021. Sebastian Malabi wrote in "More Money Than God" that by 2008, about 36 former employees of the Tiger Fund had set up their own fund, managing $100 billion in assets.
In the Forbes List of the World's Richest People released in 2021, Robertson ranked 638th on the list with a fortune of $4.5 billion.
These investment gurus were born before World War II
Like Julian Robertson, some of the investment giants born before World War II are still active in the market.
The most well-known investment guru is undoubtedly "stock god" Warren E. Buffett, who was born on August 30, 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, at the age of 92, and is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is ranked 6th on the 2021 Forbes Global Rich List with a fortune of $96 billion.
Buffett is a world-renowned investor and philanthropist who studied under Benjamin Graham and advocated value investing, and his investment philosophy has influenced countless investors around the world, and his shareholder letters have become an investment treasure book that investors around the world are eager to read. In addition, the annual auction of "Buffett's Lunch" since 2000 has also become a focus topic in the industry.
Charlie Thomas Munger is Buffett's golden partner and a globally renowned investor, as well as vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he is now 98 years old, and in the past 46 years, he and Buffett have teamed up to create the best investment record ever — the book value of Berkshire shares at an average annual compound yield of 20.3% created an investment myth, and the price per share rose from $19 to $84,487.
Also worth mentioning is hedge fund giant Soros, who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930, moved to the United States in 1956, and worked as a trader in New York. In 1973, soros Fund Management was founded. Soros's Quantum Fund made a $35 billion profit over a 30-year period, setting a record for a hedge fund. In January 2015, Soros announced his complete retirement at the then Davos Economic Forum dinner, saying that he would no longer manage investments and would fully promote philanthropy.
The above investment masters were born before World War II and have had a profound impact on the investment community. With the aging of the older generation of investment giants, the international investment community has reached the stage of inheritance of the old and the new. In May last year, David Swensen, yale's chief investment officer known as the godfather of institutional investors, died of illness at the age of 67. Yale University released a letter of condolence on its official website, as a student of David Swenson, Founder and CEO of Hillhouse Capital Zhang Lei posted a condolence letter in the early morning, lamenting that "the legend never ends".
Editor-in-Charge: Ringoon